


In Medias Res

by wakeuptothemoon



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Epistolary, M/M, Minor Peggy Carter/Daniel Sousa, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23806879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakeuptothemoon/pseuds/wakeuptothemoon
Summary: In a series of letters, Steve puts the Infinity Stones back in their places and figures out what he really wants to do.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 22





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boomsherlocka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boomsherlocka/gifts).



Buck,

At first, I couldn’t figure out what order to do this damn job. Once I did that, I wasn’t sure how long it would take or if writing to you would really be worth doing. How long did Bruce say it would be for you—5 seconds? 10? So will you get all of these at once? I don’t know. I figured I might need to get the hammer back to Thor first. He’d need it and damn if I didn’t want to get used to anything other than the shield. We can’t get too soft, right?

Not that we didn’t talk about this. Not that we didn’t try to figure out the logistical problems of getting the Ether back where it needed to be but still. I figure I can “land” right after Rocket runs out and then leave before the guards get there. So that’ll be first. I’ll write after that.

Steve


	2. Two

Buck,

Thor and Rocket neglected to mention that Jane was fucking awake when he got her and that she was in a nightgown. My fucking face hurts but thankfully she doesn’t have superpowers—she would have knocked my head off, and even the serum wouldn’t have helped that much. I could hear Rocket running down the hall away from me as I bolted out of her room—right after I got her in the shoulder with the Ether. I left Mjolnir in the hall before I went back into the quantum realm. I’ll admit, I considered holding onto it and using some of my extra Pim particles to bring it back AFTER the rest of the stops, but they’re too important to waste.

Did you think that we’d be doing anything like this, when you went off to war and I was trying so hard to follow you? Time travel and fucking aliens and gods, plural. I feel like at this point God Himself could show up and I’d treat Him the same as Thor, or even Loki. 

Power stone is next. After meeting Quill, I’m pretty sure this one will be an easy one.

Steve


	3. Three

Bucky,

Power stone drop off went fine. I almost tripped over Quill before I went into the chamber to put it back – I think Nebula really hit him hard but hell, I’d’ve probably hit him pretty hard too. Tony told me about his failed attempt on Titan, before – I told you, right? About Quill fucking it up—even if Strange said there was only one future where we won, I wonder about it. I’ll have to keep wondering, I guess. Tony would have known more about it, about the alternate timelines. Maybe his little one will be able to figure more of it out.

I know we have to put these back but I wonder about—and won’t, don’t get me wrong—keeping them and making a new set for us. But then who would come for them? I’m sure that there’s more out there, worse than Thanos. It’s a fucking scary thought but Tony knew, and so I have to agree. The endgame is up there, he said. He was right. He was right about a lot, and I’m glad that we got to spend a little time together as friends before he died.

Alright, I’ve got my clothes changed for the army base. The tesseract might be harder to replace, and I’ll have to avoid that sharp young woman in the elevator. Well, and Howard. He’d actually recognize me. I think you were right, I shouldn’t have shaved. Hell, I think Nat said the same thing.

Steve


	4. Four

Buck,

Being at the army base reminded me of when we found you. God, I remember when you looked me in the eye, and I’d thought you were dead, and you couldn’t figure out how I was taller than you. After all the shit since then, it seems pretty normal to rescue someone from sort of diabolical lab. Hell, Pepper rescued Tony in his OWN lab once.

I wonder if you should have come with me. It’s not been that many days (the travel parts are hard to gage) but it’s lonely. I can’t really talk to anyone – Scott’s not wrong, it’s dangerous! – and the time in the realm is deathly silent. It honestly reminds me of when I was in the ice. I told you about the time before I was really unconscious, where it was just dark and quiet and floating. I guess space would be like that. I should ask Thor about when he was in the void, before Quill picked him up. I bet it’s the same. I bet you felt that between wipes.

I’m putting the mind stone back now. It honestly feels wrong to do that, I don’t want Loki to have it, but I guess there’s no choice. Hopefully, I won’t have to punch myself in the face again. I don’t recommend it.

Steve


	5. Five

Buck,

I barely managed to get the scepter back where it needed to be. I still don’t know how I fought that whole thing in a mask like that, but thankfully Tony looked me right in the face and didn’t notice anything.

It hurt to see him like that. I can’t take one time’s Tony and replace him in ours, but he’s small and I could definitely just pick him and toss him over my shoulder like a damsel and run.

Howard was a small man, too, you remember. I think he would have marveled over your Wakandan arm. I know I did. And I’m glad that we could melt that other one down. I remember your face when T’Challa offered to do that—we weren’t sure if it could melt, but he laughed and so did Shuri.

I knew it was cathartic. I don’t know if I’ll have a similar moment about Tony, yet anyway.

I’ll write again when I’m out of this borough.

Steve


	6. Six

Buck, I’m not sure what to do now.

I know I need to put the last two back but I’m not sure of which to do first. I can’t get Nat back with the soul stone, I know, but I’m not sure if I want to see her body-will there be a body? We buried Tony and stood vigil for him but not for her. You knew her, what do you think? God, I wish you were here. Would you tell me to do the hardest thing first? I remember once, when me and you and Peggy and Howard were together, and I couldn’t get drunk but you all could – and you told me that sometimes the hard thing becomes easy when you just do it. When you take the step. It wasn’t two weeks after that that you fell off of that train and then the rest of that hell started for you. I know Shuri and T’Challa have erased those triggers but I also know how triggers don’t really go away.

They call you White Wolf, down there. It’s a beautiful country. I could tell how much you liked it and how endeared you were to them.

I wonder what Peggy and Howard would think of us—what did you call yourself? A semi-stable 100-year-old man? Aren’t we both there. Jesus.

Steve


	7. Seven

Bucky,

I’ll tell you first that Vormir is strangely beautiful. But I’ll tell you second that Clint neglected to tell me (ME) that motherfucking Red Skull is the guardian and that if I instinctively tried to punch his face my fist would sail right through and into a fucking boulder.

For a minute, just a minute, I forgot about Nat and the stone and it was time to fight Red Skull again. He told me he was not bothered by my reaction, that he understood. HE understood.

He held out a hand for the soul stone and for fuck’s sake, I almost just gave it to him.

But then I asked where her body was, and he looked sad, if his face could do that, and he said that once the stone is taken, the body is gone. There was nothing for me to take, nothing to bury. He apologized. No one had ever brought the Stone back, he said.

I put it in his hand and turned away. He said, Steven, son of Sarah and Joseph, thank you. Thanked me! I told him I didn’t want his thanks. And then I walked down the mountain before I noticed that Nat’s gun was in my pocket.

Steve


	8. Eight

Buck,

Time stone is last. I’ve done myself a favor, with the order. I’m glad I didn’t do Vormir last, like we’d discussed.

I had to wait for Bruce to leave and then for us to leave for the tesseract. It was wild to see him slumped over and the Sorceress talking to herself—or so it looked like, that was a story for the ages. I’m glad Bruce told us about it.

I climbed up the fire escape ladder to the roof. She turned to me and asked me in for tea. Her eyes were kind, and I gave her the stone back before I accepted—I felt like it was too important to not just return. This one really saved our asses, I told her.

I remember once when your mom made us tea. It was before you left but after my parents were both gone. She had a tea set with flowers, and she put a ton of sugar in mine. You kept knocking my knee under the table and shaking the cups.

We had our tea and she asked if I wanted to rest for a while. I honestly laughed—Buck, remember rest? I fucking don’t. I told her that, and she laughed too. Being the Sorcerer Supreme isn’t exactly restful, she said, so I understand.

She took me back up to the roof and left me alone. I have three Pims left. I wonder if she knows what we talked about. I wonder if she knows.

Steve


	9. Nine

Bucky,

I’m outside her house.

Steve


	10. Ten

Bucky,

There’s another man there, he’s obviously been in the war—he used a crutch to get up the stairs. But his face—and her face. I knew Peggy had lived her life, but we hadn’t discussed anything when she was lucid about this. Not about this.

I know Peggy didn’t have children herself—her siblings did. He seems kind. I just wanted… what did I want? Respite? Companionship?

I ended up focusing on her—you know I did, because you were gone. You knew her. You were as captivated as I was. This guy is the same. She’s like the sun, you can’t look away. Blinding.

I wonder now if I could just tell her, it turns out okay. I’m okay. But I can’t disrupt this. I can’t. I might stand here until they turn out the lights. I might until they get up in the morning and I get to see her once all rumpled from sleep. But probably not. Lights it is.

I can hear you telling me not to be a damn creep. This time I’ll follow your orders. See ya.

Steve


	11. Eleven

Steve,

I’m just in the next room, don’t worry.

When you popped back onto that damn platform, tired and stubbly but otherwise completely the same, I admit, I about slapped you. I would have used the metal arm. You still gave Sam the shield, you did all of that like we talked about, but then you said we should go home and said nothing about her, or about the stones.

You went to my rooms and got into my shower. I just stood there and didn’t know what to do when you paused in the doorway and pointed at the gun on the desk and said it was Natasha’s.

I asked you what happened and then I could see it in your eyes. The longing and how it was spurned and how much it must have taken. And I felt like I needed to ask more but you just reached out for my hand and pulled me over to the couch to sit with you.

Then you told it all to me, even though when you reappeared my coms were popping with your notes. You told me, and you said that you couldn’t disrupt her life with all the disruption that follows you. I need to be here, you said, and I need to be here with you. Even if I’m not the one with the shield, I’ve got work to do, you said.

I’d made my peace with your desire for a normal life. Even though you’ve never been normal, you’ve always been extraordinary even if you were sick every damn day. I made my peace with the idea that we wouldn’t fight together again, that I’d help Sam any way I could, all of that. And then there you were, and now we have to talk about this.

We can keep writing, if that works. We can talk when you get up. I don’t care. But I’m here, and I’m with you til the end of the line.

I’m glad you came back in one piece.

Bucky


End file.
